BusinessObjects Report Engine Java SDK is primarily used for Web Intelligence customization. This post describes how to start development of a command line tool. Such tools can make life of report developers easier. They can be used for:

• Documentation creation.
• Simple corrections and layout changes.
• Purging data from Webi documents.
• Automatic tests.

You will need:

• A bit of programming experience
• Eclipse IDE for Java Developers (http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/)
• BusinessObjects Enterprise XI 3.1 server (to connect to)
• BusinessObjects SDK libraries (see the list below)

New project in Eclipse

Download and extract Eclipse. Start it. Select default workspace folder (the new projects will be created in this folder). On the welcome page click “Go to Workbench”.

Create a new project:

1. File>New>Java Project

2. Specify project name (e.g. JavaTool).

3. Click Finish.

4. In the project folder on the disk (e.g. C:\Users\dbu\workspace\JavaTool\), create a folder lib and copy the jar files into it.

5. In Eclipse: Project>Properties>Java Build Path>Libraries, click “Add External JARs…”, OK.

6. Create package in the project. File>New>Package, type a name (e.g. org.bukhantsov.javatool), and click OK.

7. Create new class which will be starting point of the application. File>New>Class, type a name (e.g. Program), select option “public static void main” and click OK.

The generated class will be something like this:

package org.bukhantsov.javatool;
public class Program {
   /** 
   * @param args 
   */
   public static void main(String[] args) {
      // TODO Auto-generated method stub
   }
}

Let’s start

The first program will print all variables defined in Web Intelligence documents from a BOE server folder. Let’s consider functional blocks of the application.

Connect to CMS

The first thing you have to do is to connect to the BOE server.

ISessionMgr sessionMgr = CrystalEnterprise.getSessionMgr();
IEnterpriseSession enterpriseSession =
  sessionMgr.logon("Administrator", "", "localhost", "secEnterprise");

Replace “localhost” with the name of your BOE server.

Get Webi documents from CMS

When you connected, you can get the objects corresponding to Webi documents from CMS.

IInfoStore infoStore = (IInfoStore) enterpriseSession.getService("InfoStore");
String query = "select SI_NAME, SI_ID from CI_INFOOBJECTS "
             + "where SI_KIND = 'Webi' and SI_INSTANCE=0";
IInfoObjects infoObjects = (IInfoObjects) infoStore.query(query);

You can build and test the query in BusinessObjects Query Builder.

Get report engine proxy

To open Webi document, you need to get a proxy to Webi report engine web service.

ReportEngines reportEngines =
   (ReportEngines) enterpriseSession.getService("ReportEngines");
ReportEngine wiRepEngine =
   (ReportEngine) reportEngines.getService(
      ReportEngines.ReportEngineType.WI_REPORT_ENGINE);

Process Webi documents from a folder

In a loop you can process all Webi documents from a folder

for (Object object : infoObjects) {
   IInfoObject infoObject = (IInfoObject) object;
   String path = getInfoObjectPath(infoObject);
   if (path.startsWith("/")) {
      DocumentInstance widoc = wiRepEngine.openDocument(infoObject.getID());
      // process document
      widoc.closeDocument();
   }
}

The function getInfoObjectPath builds path to the Webi document. Parent of Webi document is folder, and parent of folder is folder. The root folder has id = 0.

public static String getInfoObjectPath(IInfoObject infoObject) throws SDKException {
   String path = "";
   while (infoObject.getParentID() != 0) {
      infoObject = infoObject.getParent();
      path = "/" + infoObject.getTitle() + path;
   }
   return path;
}

Print Webi document variables

ReportDictionary dic = widoc.getDictionary();
VariableExpression[] variables = dic.getVariables();
for (VariableExpression e : variables) {
   String name = e.getFormulaLanguageID();
   String expression = e.getFormula().getValue();
   System.out.println(" " + name + " " + expression);
}

Error handling

An important part of each program is error handling.

public static void main(String[] args) {
   IEnterpriseSession enterpriseSession = null;
   ReportEngines reportEngines = null;
   try {
      // * connect to CMS
      // * get report engine proxy
      // * get Webi documents from CMS 
      // * process the documents
   }
   catch (SDKException ex) {
      ex.printStackTrace();
   }
   finally {
      if (reportEngines != null) reportEngines.close();
      if (enterpriseSession != null) enterpriseSession.logoff();
   }
}

Put all together

The complete code can be downloaded from here (however without libs). You can import it from File menu: File > Import… > Existing Project into Workspace.

package org.bukhantsov.javatool;

import com.businessobjects.rebean.wi.DocumentInstance;
import com.businessobjects.rebean.wi.ReportDictionary;
import com.businessobjects.rebean.wi.ReportEngine;
import com.businessobjects.rebean.wi.ReportEngines;
import com.businessobjects.rebean.wi.VariableExpression;
import com.crystaldecisions.sdk.exception.SDKException;
import com.crystaldecisions.sdk.framework.CrystalEnterprise;
import com.crystaldecisions.sdk.framework.IEnterpriseSession;
import com.crystaldecisions.sdk.framework.ISessionMgr;
import com.crystaldecisions.sdk.occa.infostore.IInfoObject;
import com.crystaldecisions.sdk.occa.infostore.IInfoObjects;
import com.crystaldecisions.sdk.occa.infostore.IInfoStore;

public class Program {
   public static void main(String[] args) {
      IEnterpriseSession enterpriseSession = null;
      ReportEngines reportEngines = null;
      try {
         System.out.println("Connecting...");
         ISessionMgr sessionMgr = CrystalEnterprise.getSessionMgr();
         enterpriseSession = sessionMgr.logon("Administrator",
               "", "localhost", "secEnterprise");
         reportEngines = (ReportEngines) enterpriseSession
               .getService("ReportEngines");
         ReportEngine wiRepEngine = (ReportEngine) reportEngines
               .getService(ReportEngines.ReportEngineType.WI_REPORT_ENGINE);         

         IInfoStore infoStore =
               (IInfoStore) enterpriseSession.getService("InfoStore");
         String query = "select SI_NAME, SI_ID from CI_INFOOBJECTS "
                      + "where SI_KIND = 'Webi' and SI_INSTANCE=0";
         IInfoObjects infoObjects = (IInfoObjects) infoStore.query(query);
         for (Object object : infoObjects) {
            IInfoObject infoObject = (IInfoObject) object;
            String path = getInfoObjectPath(infoObject);
            if (path.startsWith("/")) {
               DocumentInstance widoc = wiRepEngine.openDocument(infoObject.getID());
               String doc = infoObject.getTitle();
               System.out.println(path + "/" + doc);               
               printDocumentVariables(widoc);
               widoc.closeDocument();
            }
         }
      }
      catch (SDKException ex) {
         ex.printStackTrace();
      }
      finally {
         if (reportEngines != null)
            reportEngines.close();
         if (enterpriseSession != null)
            enterpriseSession.logoff();
      }
      System.out.println("Finished!");
   }

   public static void printDocumentVariables(DocumentInstance widoc ) {
      ReportDictionary dic = widoc.getDictionary();
      VariableExpression[] variables = dic.getVariables();
      for (VariableExpression e : variables) {
         String name = e.getFormulaLanguageID();
         String expression = e.getFormula().getValue();
         System.out.println(" " + name + " " + expression);
      }
   }        

   public static String getInfoObjectPath(IInfoObject infoObject) 
                                        throws SDKException {
      String path = "";
      while (infoObject.getParentID() != 0) {
         infoObject = infoObject.getParent();
         path = "/" + infoObject.getTitle() + path;
      }
      return path;
   }
}

Compile and run

You can run the program Run>Run.

To build executable JAR: go File>Export, select Java>Runnable JAR file. Select launch configuration (you will probably have the only one), select destination, select “Package required libraries into generated JAR”, and click Finish.

You can run the program using the following command:

java -jar javatool.jar

Final notes

Before running your tool on a bunch of reports it should be carefully tested. Especially if you do modifications.

The purpose of the code was to demonstrate how to access report engine. It does not demonstrate the best programming practices.

Java SDK Libraries

The Java SDK libraries can be found in the installation folder with BusinessObjects client tools or on the server.

C:\Program Files (x86)\Business Objects\common\4.0\java\lib

Required libraries:

  boconfig.jar
  cecore.jar
  celib.jar
  cesdk.jar
  cesession.jar
  corbaidl.jar
  ebus405.jar
  jtools.jar
  logging.jar
  rebean.common.jar
  rebean.jar
  rebean.wi.jar
  wilog.jar
  xpp3.jar
  xpp3_min.jar
  SL_plugins.jar

Links

Webi Report Engine Documentation